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Day of the Beast
End of Mayan Time
Year 2038 Bug
Planets Align
Y2K Again
False Leap-Year Cover Page Index Appendix |
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False Leap-Year
February 29, 2100 - This date does not exist despite what many people may think! ExplanationA not-so-well known fact is that a year does not consist of 365 days, nor 365 and a quarter days! In fact, it consists of approximately 365.2422 days (but we use 365.2425 in our calendar). Therefore, every 4 years, we will receive an additional 0.2422 x 4 = 0.9688 days. Or about one extra day. This is why every 4 years, the calendar is 366 days with February 29 being that extra day. As you may notice 0.9688 is not exactly a full day, so overtime, we would have counted an extra day in our calendar. To compensate for that, in fact, every centurial year (i.e. 1800, 1900 etc.) that is not divisible by 400 is in fact not a leap year despite the fact that it is divisible by 4. As a result, 2000 was in fact a leap year because it was divisible by 400. Therefore, in the age of computers, this had no affect on algorithms that calculated leap years simply by seeing if a year is divisible by 4. Unfortunately, this is not the case in 2100 because it isn't divisible by 400 so it is not a leap year! Computer software that uses the simple divide-by-4 algorithm to find leap years will fail. An extra day would be added to our calendar! |
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